Episodi
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Links:
Karen's website: Happy Mandarin
My website: imlearningmandarin.com
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Today's guest is Karen Cheuk, an inspiring educator behind Happy Mandarin, an organization that helps children learn Chinese in a fun and engaging environment.
Karen was born and raised in Hong Kong and went on to study at Cambridge University on a scholarship. After graduating and having a daughter, she was inspired to create Happy Mandarin.
She noticed that existing Chinese classes did not strike the right balance between fun and learning and often only catered to Chinese-speaking families, so she created Happy Mandarin to fill this gap.
Karen is also a mother and juggles her work activities with raising a trilingual daughter.
We had a wide-ranging chat about the importance of creating an immersive environment for children to learn a second or third language, encouraging parents to learn alongside their children and how to integrate the language into their daily lives.
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Links:
Glossika: https://ai.glossika.com/
The I'm Learning Mandarin blog: imlearningmandarin.com
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In this episode, I talk with Michael Campbell, a true language enthusiast and the founder of language learning app, Glossika.
Michael has dedicated a significant portion of his life to understanding and mastering languages, having lived in Taiwan for most of his life and become proficient in many Chinese languages and dialects along the way.
In this wide ranging interview we discuss how growing up surrounded by polyglots in the intelligence community inspired him to take up languages as well as the driving force behind the creation of Glossika.
Glossika takes a unique approach to language acquisition, focusing on building “muscle memory” through repeated exposure to sound patterns.
This method, coupled with a clever blend of increasing and decreasing spaced repetition intervals, helps learners internalize the natural flow and structure of their target language.
I began by asking Michael how and why he started learning Mandarin.
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Episodi mancanti?
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Links:
Mandarin Blueprint: https://www.mandarinblueprint.com/
My blog: imlearningmandarin.com
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On today’s episode, I interview Phil Crimmins. Phil is one of the two minds behind Mandarin Blueprint, a Mandarin learning course with over 4000 videos taking learners step-by-step all the way to Mandarin proficiency.
Phil's journey with Mandarin is fascinating. He graduated from Sichuan University in China with a bachelor's degree in the Chinese language. But he left unsatisfied with the traditional methods of learning Chinese he'd been exposed to.
So together with his business partner Luke, they created Mandarin Blueprint.
Before exploring how the blueprint works and the thinking that went behind it, I was keen to find out more about Phil’s personal experiences of learning Mandarin.
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Links:
Amanda's website: https://www.misspandachinese.com/about/
Let's Learn Chinese with Miss Panda album: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7glqGNHQOnHMV7pNKbMTSU
My website: imlearningmandarin.com
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Welcome to the podcast! Today's guest is Amanda, better known as "Miss Panda," a renowned expert in Mandarin language instruction.
Amanda boasts over 30 years of experience teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and Mandarin Chinese.
She's also a published author, consultant, and the creative force behind the popular "Let's Learn Mandarin Chinese with Miss Panda!" album, which has helped introduce Mandarin Chinese to a global audience.
Throughout her career, Amanda has made significant contributions to the field of language acquisition, presenting her insights at conferences worldwide.
Her dedication extends beyond the classroom; she actively assists various educational institutions in developing their Chinese language and culture programs.
In this episode, we'll explore Amanda's inspiring journey as a Mandarin teacher, her innovative teaching methods, and the impact she's had on countless language learners.
I began by asking her how that journey all began.
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Links:
Jorrit's Kaohongshu blog: https://kaohongshu.blog/about/
My free eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
My blog: imlearningmandarin.com
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In this episode, I have the pleasure of chatting with Jorrit, a Dutch blogger and the creator of the Kaohongshu website, about his Mandarin learning journey.
Jorrit opens up about learning the language, living in China, and the challenges of maintaining his abilities after returning to a non-Chinese-speaking environment.
We also explore the story behind his Kaohongshu blog and his mission to inspire and help others in their language-learning journeys.
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Links:
Bryce's website: https://www.brycehedstrom.com
My free Mandarin Learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
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On today’s episode, I interview Bryce Hedstrom – an award-winning teacher trainer in northern Colorado.
Bryce has a varied and fascinating history in language learning and teaching, graduating in Spanish before teaching the language in public schools and at the college level for 30 years.
He’s worked with clients in the business world, including Fortune 500 corporations and has received multiple awards for his work implementing methods for language instruction that centre around comprehensible input and storytelling.
Moreover, as we’ll soon discover, he’s taken an interest in learning Mandarin, applying similar methods to those that were so effective in his teaching career.
With so much to cover in this interview, it was hard to know where to start. So I began by asking Bryce how his fascination with languages all began.
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Links:
Our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p
Our Peak Mandarin Masterpack for learning Chinese: https://www.peakmandarin.com/masterclass
Will's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@willhartmandarin/videos
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In this episode, I share our special live q&a session with Will Hart, co-founder of Peak Mandarin.
Will should need no introduction to readers of this blog. Two years ago he burst on the Mandarin learning scene when videos of him speaking flawless Chinese after learning for less than two years went viral on YouTube.
In the q&a, Will took live questions from the audience in our Discord Server on all things Mandarin learning.
Questions ranged from Will’s thoughts on Comprehensible Input to how he went about learning characters.
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Links:
Peak Mandarin Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p
Your ultimate guide to Mastering Chinese tones
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In this episode, we’re diving into one of the most challenging parts of learning Mandarin: mastering tricky tone pairs.
I’ll walk you through four of the most commonly mispronounced tone combinations and explain how to get them right.
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In this episode, we bring you the recording of our October 20th session where we tackled questions on how to fix your tones.
If you're looking to improve your tones but aren't sure how, this discussion is packed with insights from me, as well as server moderator, Jered.
Tune in to hear valuable tips, expert advice, and answers to your questions from the live audience. Perfect for anyone looking to level up their tones!
Interested in joining more live sessions like this? Join our Discord server on this link: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p
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Links:
Peak Mandarin Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p
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In this episode, I dive into one of the most common questions Mandarin learners face:
Do you really need to memorise the tones for every new word?
Drawing from my personal journey of learning Mandarin and my experiences coaching other learners on my Pronunciation Academy, I discuss the challenges many learners encounter with tone memorisation.
I’ll share tips on memorising tones and learning to produce them accurately.
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Links:
Peak Mandarin Discord: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p
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In a recent episode, we announced the launch of our Peak Mandarin Discord Server.
In just over a week we’ve seen the server grow into a thriving hub with nearly 200 learners supporting each other to ace their Mandarin-speaking goals.
And in today’s episode you’ll hear our first-ever live Q&A hosted in the server last Sunday, covering how to practice speaking at an early stage of your learning.
Joining me on the q&a panel were Peak Mandarin server moderators, Jered and Lewys, who’ve each been leaning Mandarin for around two years and focussed heavily on speaking during that time.
We had some great questions covering how to find opportunities to speak and get feedback from native speakers early on, in a way that’s effective and stress-free.
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Links:
Peak Mandarin Discord server: https://discord.gg/BtT6t7fK
Interview with Karen Chung: https://imlearningmandarin.com/2022/06/26/how-to-achieve-a-near-native-chinese-accent-with-professor-karen-chung-podcast/
My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
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Recently a member of our Peak Mandarin Discord server posted a short clip of a native Mandarin speaker saying a sentence in mid-conversation at full-blown speed.
The sentence was: 这么复杂的东西怎么学得会啊不可能的嘛对吧。Zhème fùzá de dōngxī zěnme xué de huì a bù kěnéng de ma duì ba. Something this complicated, how could I possibly learn it? It's impossible, right?
The challenge was laid out for members of the server to mimic the sentence and post their attempts on the thread to receive feedback from other learners.
So I decided to deploy the methods I often use to mimic native speech and give it a go.
In this episode I’m going to break down step by step how I went from struggling to keep up to being able to deliver the sentence with natural rhythm and accurate tones at lightning speed.
A word of caution, this sentence was particularly challenging, so if you don’t have much experience mimicking Mandarin, it’s advisable to start with something shorter and much slower.
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Links:
My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
Our Peak Mandarin Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p
Joshua's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jlykes
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On today’s episode, I interview Joshua Lykes, an up-and-coming YouTuber whose recent videos on learning Chinese have been creating waves in the community.
Joshua recently posted an hour-long video documenting in detail his first year of Mandarin learning.
And one of the things that stood out to me about that video Joshua’s use of technology, much of which wasn’t available to me when I first started learning Chinese.
It strikes me that in the last year or two, the sudden exposition of AI has had a tremendously deep impact on how we learn Chinese and that’s only going to increase going forward.
So after meeting Joshua on our Peak Mandarin Discord server and learning about his journey, I decided to get him on the podcast to chat about his experiences using AI to learn Chinese, as well as his hopes for the future of technology and language learning.
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Link to Discord Server: https://discord.gg/gvWFSDbj
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One thing I’ve found that’s often missing for a lot of learners is this sense of community, of belonging to a network of other learners who share similar goals and can support each other.
This is something I try and provide here through my blog. But I’d like to expand this further. So today, we’re announcing the launch of our Peak Mandarin Discord community, a space where Mandarin learners can hang out, share tips and learning experiences and support each other to achieve our goals.
To join the community you can click this link. If you don’t already have a Discord account you’ll be prompted to create one and then join the Peak Mandarin server.
Once in the server feel free to write a post introducing yourself to the community, share your experiences and get involved in discussions.
To explain more about why we’re creating this online community and what we hope to achieve through it I sat down to chat with three of our community moderators, Lewys, Jered and Philipp.
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Links:
My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
My blog: imlearningmandarin.com
In my first few years of learning Chinese, there were many occasions when I’d suddenly be made aware of a huge flaw in my Chinese I had previously been blind to.
This might take the form of a direct comment from a native speaker who is less polite than normal. Or it might be an embarrassing failed attempt to communicate in Mandarin.
These moments can be pivotal in shaping our learning experience for better or worse.
Recently I was talking about this to one of my students, Lewys, who I’ve previously interviewed on this podcast. Lewys has experienced plenty of what he calls – ‘wet fish moments’ some of which affected his confidence and even caused him to give up.
So in this episode, we share our experiences of having our egos crushed in the process of learning Mandarin and offer our tips for other learners on how best to avoid similar experiences.
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Links:
Get 20% off first month of Mandarin Mosaic: https://mandarinmosaic.com/imlearningmandarin
Karl's blog on ChatGPT: http://imlearningmandarin.com/2024/05/19/does-chatgpt-speak-authentic-chinese-the-results-of-my-study-may-surprise-you/
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My guest on this week’s episode is an app designer who has made several appearances here in the past.
Karl Baker, recently launched his new Mandarin learning app, Mandarin Mosaic.
The App seeks to make sentence mining accessible. Like Anki, but easier to use and
And if you’re interested in trying it out, you can go go mandarinmosaic.com/imlearningmandarin to get 20% off your first month.
I caught up with Karl and began by asking him all about his new launch, as well as his plans for the future.
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Links:
Peak Mandarin Newsletter: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
My blog reflecting on the summer camp experience: http://imlearningmandarin.com/2024/08/04/5-things-i-learned-from-5-days-of-total-mandarin-immersion/
Will's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@willhartmandarin/videos
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Last week I attended a five-day immersive Mandarin Retreat Summer Camp as a lead organiser.
A group of 14 of us, including learners, organisers volunteers, and native tutors got together in Cheddar, in the south-west of England, and spoke nothing but Chinese for five days straight.
While it’s all still fresh in my mind, I decided to get my colleague and co-founder of Peak Mandarin, Will Hart, to chat about the experience.
Will also attended the retreat as an organiser and in this episode, we chat about what the experience of deep immersion was like and how we plan to make these camps bigger and better in the future.
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Links:
Phillipps blog: https://philippmarxen.com/?p=256
My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
My Blog: imlearningmandarin.com
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In this podcast and on my blog, I've often discussed how Anki flashcards can be used to boost your Mandarin learning.
Anki is a Spaced Repetition flashcards program that enables you to drill and create flashcards to aid your memory's retention of new information.
And my guest on today's podcast recently decided to take the Anki plunge, setting himself an ambitious challenge to drill flashcards for several hours a day every day, while documenting his progress on his blog.
Philipp Marxen is from Germany and has been learning Mandarin on and off for over two decades.
In this episode, we discuss his recent one-month challenge, including how he structured his learning and what it was like drilling Anki for several hours a day.
Does he recommend the method to others? Listen on to hear more.
If you like this episode please don't forget to subscribe on your favoured podcast provider.
Now onto the episode!
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Links:
Follow along with a transcript and translation on: imlearningmandarin.com
Get your free copy of my eBook on: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
Subscribe to Will's YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@willhartmandarin/videos
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Today's podcast episode features a Chinese learning superstar who should need no introduction.
Will Hart, created waves in the Mandarin learning community when he reached an incredible level of fluency in just 1.5 years while living in the UK during the Covid pandemic.
Will is the co-founder of our learning platform Peak Mandarin. And he's also the subject of my eBook, Lessons from a Chinese Learning Phenomenon, in which I unpack how he used a mixture of immersion and sentence-mining techniques to become fluent in Chinese - and how I put his methods into practice to learn the language myself.
In today's episode, Will talks in Mandarin about his recent attempts to learn Spanish using similar methods to the ones that previously worked so well for him.
As usual, you can follow along with a transcript below, as well as an English translation.
And if you like this podcast, please don't forget to subscribe to your favourite podcast provider.
Now on to Will's Spanish learning adventures!
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Links:
Kristen's Instagram Channel: https://www.instagram.com/learnchinesewithkristen/
My Free Mandarin Learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook
My blog: imlearningmandarin.com
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On today’s episode, I speak to Kristen, a Mandarin speaker and teacher from Canada.
Kristen has been learning Chinese since 2013. Like me, she initially began learning outside China, and is full of insights based on her experience of overcoming barriers on the path to spoken Chinese fluency.
More recently, Kristen turned her attention to helping others learn Chinese, teaching the language through her popular Instagram channel.
And with over 15,000 followers, she’s become well-known within the online Mandarin learning community for her short reels teaching Chinese grammar points, phrases and pronunciation tips.
My interview with Kristen is full of gems for anyone looking to become a fluent Chinese speaker. In particular, listen out for her tips on learning Mandarin outside the classroom and structuring your learning around your interests.
For anyone interested in checking out her channel, I’ve left a link to it in the description.
And as usual, if you enjoy this podcast please don’t forget to hit the subscribe button on your favoured podcast provider.
Now on to today’s interview with Kisten!
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